Tangled in Webs: Blondie meets the Web-slinger
by IirieCadence
Summary: When Kingpin gets a strange new invention, he tries to summon a villain whose skill set will finally defeat Spiderman. When the portal goes haywire, a ditsy, nearly-sixteen-year-old girl with hair-slinging abilities & a knack for causing chaos is sucked into New York. Rapunzel teams up with frazzled & irritable Peter Parker to defeat Kingpin & return to her own world in one piece.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue:

Sir Alistair Smythe, robot intelligence, employee of the crime-lord Kingpin, sat in his laboratory. His fingers were folded, his elbows rested on his wheelchair, and a brooding stare dominated his face; only he knew how long he had been sitting like this, in his normal thinking position. He had come up with a contraption that he did not fully understand and was hesitant to use. But, as much as he hated to admit it, without giving results to his boss, his job and life were at stake.

Smythe reached over and picked up the device, a small, glass sphere. The sifting violet particles inside fluttered at his touch as he turned it over in his hands. The average person would simply think it a boring knickknack, but in reality, it was the most complex invention he had ever created.

"Smythe!" boomed an impatient voice, suddenly very near. Smythe didn't move, his eyes still glassy.

A form emerged to his right, a large, full-bellied man in a white coat. There was a furrowed frown on his thick face.

"This had better be a success, unlike certain other failures I'm sure you needn't be reminded of," the man boomed.

The spider-slayers. Smythe's absent stare darkened.

"I am sure you will be quite pleased with this one." He held up the sphere without looking at his employer.

Kingpin snatched it up and held it irreverently at arms length. "What is this?" he asked.

"Exactly what you asked for," replied Smythe flatly, not moving. "A dimensional transporter."

A greedy gleam lit up Kingpins beady eyes. He brought the sphere to eye level and turned it slowly.

"Has it been tested?"

"Not yet."

"Is testing required?"

Smythe raised an eyebrow. "It's a highly volatile radioactive sphere, capable of taking out half a continent if mishandled. Would you like to repeat the question?" He added smugly.

Kingpin's glare was poisonous, even though he knew Smythe wasn't looking. "Don't test me, Smythe. We all know what will happen if you do."

"Right. Didn't I mention the continental damage?"

Kingpin ignored the remark, examining the sphere.

"How does it work?"

"Theoretically, you tell it what you want and toss it in the air."

"It's that simple?"

"Theoretically. Think of it as a semi-intelligent android, compacted into a sphere and responsive to voice activations of a single user. But it's also unstable and untested. It would be foolish to-"

A flip of the Kingpin's wrist, and the globe was in the air, spinning and growing large, now starting to shake."I want a villain that matches Spider-man's cursed agility," he bellowed.

"No!" Smythe screamed. His chair whirred to life at his command, dragging him backwards and away from the violent surges of the growing sphere. "The atmosphere and gravitational atoms can't hold it! It's going to re-transport itself! DUCK!"

Suddenly it flattened like paper and then sucked itself out of sight, causing an explosion that lit up the room and sent both the men hurtling to the other side.

The empty rattle of falling debris was interrupted by coughs as

Kingpin emerged out of the rubble, grinning maliciously.

"Well, my little friend," he muttered through his teeth, "Let's see what you can find."

The sphere had disappeared, nowhere to be found.

* * *

Chapter One: In which the usual morning lineup includes a burnt pie, a new dress for Pascal, and a blast from a sparkly globe from...somewhere?

The smell floated to Rapunzel a split second before she jumped, squealed in terror, and dropped her sewing.

"No, no no no no no!" She flung her hair to a rafter and slid down the glossy rope to the kitchen, where the oven was smoking. She whipped out a pair of paint-splattered and embroidered pink cooking gloves and gingerly opened the oven door.

Smoke billowed out, and Rapunzel coughed as she peered through the greyness into the blackened oven.

Suddenly, a bright orange object came tumbling out, and the rug burst into flames.

"AAAAAHHHH!" screamed the girl, stumbling backwards and tripping over her hair. The flames cracked, and started spreading towards a pile of books in the kitchen doorway.

Not the books!

Rapunzel was in action in one second flat. She jumped to her feet and flung a rope of hair at the books, tossing them out of harms way. At the same time, another length of hair darted towards a pail of laundry water on the windowsill, and Rapunzel yanked it over the fire. The flames hissed angrily as they died out, but now water was spreading faster than ever towards the splayed pile of books. Rapunzel jumped, rolled over the floor, grabbed all of the books, threw a rope of hair upwards to the rafters, and pulled herself and the books into the safety of her room upstairs, collapsing onto the floor in a tangled heap of damp hair.

Rapunzel laughed breathlessly as she sat up and brushed sweat off her face.

"Well, that was a nice way to shake out the boredom," she panted, standing up, then the smile on her face disappeared as she looked down at the chaos downstairs. Water was pooled everywhere, and steam thickened the air, especially around the burnt rug and still-smoking oven.

In the very middle of the room, there sat what looked like a mangled lump of charcoal.

"Not again..." she groaned. She slide down her hair again and splashed slightly as she landed in the pool of dirty laundry water. She grabbed the black lump and looked at it dejectedly. "How many pies do I have to incinerate before I actually make one right?"

She felt a patter of tiny, wet feet tickle their way up her back, and suddenly a gasping, wheezing green face appeared at her cheek. The chameleon's eyes were huge with terror.

"Pascal!" Rapunzel cried, "Where have you been? I've been looking for you all morning, I had a new dress for you to try on!"

Pascal narrowed his eyes and chirped gravelly as he pointed at the floor where the books had been.

Rapunzel raised an eyebrow. "You were hiding from me?"

Pascal nodded without remorse.

"And got soaked in the process," Rapunzel said with an I-told-you-so-grin. "Bet you won't hid from me again!"

Pascal chattered back a cheeky response.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Rapunzel replied, rolling her eyes, "I'll try not to ruin any more pies. Not like I can help being a terrible cook."

The chameleon's cheeky expression melted into pity. Pascal cooed as he rubbed her cheek soothingly, looking up at Rapunzel with the biggest eyes he could manage.

"I know, I know," she sighed, unable to suppress a small grin as she tucked her hair behind her ear and petted her best friend with her free hand. "That's easy for you to say, 'practice makes perfect.' Seems like I'm only ever practicing how to make burnt pies, though," she added with another sigh.

Rapunzel turned away from the wreck and looked at the afternoon sky, blue as ever, peeking through her only window. She walked closer and put the charred pie pan on the windowsill, leaned on her elbows, and rubbed her shoulder with one of her hands.

It was a beautiful day. It was late summer; the leaves were toying with the prospect of changing, and the sharp scent of fall was just beginning to weave itself into the breeze. Rapunzel took a deep breath, and the edges of her mouth twitched into a sad smile as she let it out slowly.

"Isn't it lovely?" she asked Pascal, who had dropped to the windowsill and sat looking at her with a worried expression.

"Oh, I just wish..." she whispered, dropping her chin to rest on her arms, and looking out. Pascal knew what she meant. He put a tiny, three-fingered hand on her arm and purred soothingly.

"I mean, my birthday is coming up," she said quickly, running a hand through her hair. "Certainly, a sixteen year old can handle the outside world, right?"

Pascal shrugged his tiny shoulders.

"Ungh!" Rapunzel buried her head in her arms. "Who am I kidding? I can't even bake a decent pie. Having a birthday isn't going to change that."

There was a tear on her face when she raised it. "I just wish there was something I could do, but I'm not good at anything in here. Maybe, maybe out there, I'd have a purpose, you know? I'd do anything to get out of here! Anything to get what I want!"

BBBBBVVVVVVTTTTTT!

A burning light suddenly ripped through the room behind her. Rapunzel shrieked and grabbed Pascal as she whirled around. There was a steady, loud hum and slightly purple light coming from inside the kitchen.

Rapunzel stood there, gasping, clutching a bluer-by-the-minute Pascal, and watched the light. It seemed to be moving, like light she had seen reflected from water in her pans. She took a slow step forward, inching her way towards the light.

"What is that?" she murmured, not to anyone in particular, which was a good thing because Pascal was too blue to answer anyway. Not another explosion, she begged silently.

She turned and peeked into the kitchen, and caught her breath.

A huge green ball was floating in midair, surrounded by purple and blue light that seemed to breathe. The ball trembled and shrunk, pulling itself into a smaller shape. The colored light flattened itself around the ball until the whole thing looked like a miniature, kitchen-sized galaxy.

Was she crazy, or was it...calling her? Rapunzel couldn't hear the voice so much as she could feel it. She felt its urge, its pleading for her to come closer. Suddenly she wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel it.

Rapunzel timidly extended her hand, then jerked it back in fear. The light looked so sharp, so hot. Did she dare?

"Come on, Rapunzel," she murmured, squeezing her eyelids shut. In the darkness, the voice of the light seemed louder. "You can do this..."

She slowly reached out again, and the light almost bounced as it reached for her. Now it was touching her, and oh!

How it felt! Like water, only thicker. Rapunzel trailed her fingers through the softness, then put her hand through and gasped. Her fingertips felt a cold sweep of air, as if...

As if there were something-somewhere-inside the light. Rapunzel pushed her arm further in, and felt a crisp, cold wind whip through her fingers and past her hand.

The voice was urgent now, louder than ever. Here was her chance. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you guys so much for the review/favorite/follow! Hope you like this next chapter, where Spiderman steals a bit of the limelight.**** My sister and I are working on this together (YAY BONDING!); I write for Rapunzel, and Sissy writes for Spidey. Its been a BLAST so far! :D**

**And a quick note in answer to your review, highlander348; as of right now, Sis and I aren't planning on there being a ROMANCE, per say, between Spidey and Rapunzel, but they will definitely have a special relationship and show each other things about themselves that they never knew!**

**ENJOY!**

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CHAPTER 2: In which disaster strikes a New York zoo, and Spidey has to clean it up

New York, as we all know, isn't exactly the most safe place in America. And on this particular night, two men snuck down a dark alley, with black cloth bags full of who-knows-what slung over their shoulders. In the distance, police sirans sounded and an alarm went off. The men had escaped from capture just in the nick of time.

Or had they?

A certain hero had been following them for a short time now. The sirens and alarm had attracted his attention; from that point, he had tracked them with his spider sense.

Suddenly, a string of web shot out and stuck to one of the bags, ripping it off the culprits shoulder.

"Hey!" he shouted, groping in vain as it was pulled back and caught by the web-slinger, who was stuck to the brick wall.

"Sorry, I'm a curious guy. Speaking of curiosity, what are you kids doing out at this hour? You might catch a cold!"

Before the middle-aged man in the front could answer, a web shot out and caught him on the back, suddenly jerking him up and holding him in midair.

"What the-"

"I mean, sure, it's a nice night out, but there's no telling what kinds of grave diseases you amateurs could catch!"

By now, the other had joined his comrade on a nearby street light, and both black bags were in the hero's hands.

"Maybe a bad case of angry cop, or, oh no! I've heard the jail bird virus has been going around lately!"

He lightly dropped to the ground, tossing the bags to the foot of the pole and looked down at his watch.

9:35 p.m. He had twenty-five minutes before curfew at the Parker house, and he hated to keep aunt May waiting.

"You just gonna leave us here?" one of the criminals demanded as he came out of shock and realized what had happened, and what would happen.

"Don't be afraid of the dark, the monsters are nothing but your imagination," Spidey responded.

"Ha ha ha, very funny," said the other, "how long are we gonna be out here!?"

"Calm down! Its just until the police get here. Ah, and here they come now. Have a nice night!" And with a jump and a thwip, he was swinging through New York.

"Freak!"

Spider-man laughed. It never got old.

Suddenly his spider-sense tingled, and not a second too soon; he ducked as a mini golf cart flew over his head.

"Whoa!"

With his fast reflexes, he shot out a web just in time to catch it before it totalled a store.

He then swung smoothly in the direction the airborne cart had come from, and found himself at...the zoo?

"It isn't often I find trouble here! What could possibly be wro- whoa!"

He quickly jumped just in time to avoid a collision with a flying picnic table, and then spotted the pitcher.

A huge, black gorilla was angrily raging through the picnic grounds, throwing things in all directions and stopping every once in a while to beat his chest.

"Ah man, really? Why now?" But not even a raging gorilla would stop Spidey from doing his job.

"Alright, big fellah, fun's over..."

Spider-man shot out a web and caught the beast in an expanded net, but it wasn't giving up easily.

If one were to watch from a nearby building, they would find a very interesting picture. A bewildered web-slinger, a mad gorilla, a frantic struggle, and zookeepers trying to find an angle to help.

For a moment, the zoo keepers were able to contain the gorilla, and Spidey got a chance to load the strongest web fluid in his belt.

"This oughta hold him."

Just as one of the staff members was about to get hurt, Spidey jumped in and sprayed his webs on the animal until it couldn't move anymore. The angry monkey roared as he fought against the tough, sticky webbing as the manager came running with a tranquilizer.

"We'll take it from here, Spidey," the breathless manager said as he administered the tranquilizer, and the gorilla calmed down slowly. "Thanks for your help. I always knew Jameson was wrong about you."

"Thanks."

"Wait! We know who did it. Some girl came by and was somehow letting all of the animals out of their cages. Lucky for her, she didn't get to any of the real beasts, but she's caused enough chaos to keep the zoo shut down for weeks! She got off before we could catch her."

"What did she look like?"

The manager scratched his head, and a strange look came over his face. "Well, she was young, early teens, blonde, and-."

"-and had about seventy feet of hair," a scruffy man in dirty overalls interrupted.

"Sorry, say again?"

"I ain't kidding. It was so long, looked like something from a fairy-tale."

The manager cleared his throat. "We don't know that. Let us know if you catch her!"

And with that, the manager and his worker turned and walked off to help their buddies.

Spider-man jumped in the air and started swinging in the direction of home.

_A girl with seventy feet of hair? The guy must have been so frantic he was seeing things. Yeah, that was it._

But then, spider-man heard a ruckus coming from just around the next building.

"Third problem within thirty minutes. New York is busy tonight!"

But what he saw on the next curve left him speechless. There, in the middle of traffic, was a teenage girl frantically grabbing up seventy feet of golden hair to prevent it being run over. In front of her was line of cars stretching out of sight, their furious drivers yelling and honking their horns.

New York was busy tonight, indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey everybody! I am SO SORRY for the unexpected hiatus! The past few weeks have been really busy; we've been in a play, driven upwards of 15 hours to San Antonio for a week, and are wrapping up summer swim with our biggest meet this weekend. So yeah, BUSY! But I stole a little time to write a Rapunzel!POV chapter. Yeah, I know, not exactly what everyone's waiting for, but I promise, next upload will be a Spidy/Rapunzel chapter (and it's already halfway done, so hopefully no more long waits). Anyways, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your lovely reviews and follows! :D You guys are awesome! Enjoy!**

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CHAPTER 3: In which Rapunzel finds herself in a strange new world

Half an hour earlier...

Rapunzel gasped as lights brighter than the sunrise surrounded and stabbed at her, whirling like a hurricane of stars and snapping like wooden timbers in a storm. Her body whipped and whirled around, her mouth was open in a scream that couldn't be heard, and then-

UMPF! She landed on stone, her arms breaking her fall.

But her ears still rang with noise. Loud, sharp sounds like angry geese filled the air, a rumbling like thunder that never clapped swirled over her head, and loud shouts rose over the chaos like her baking timer announcing a freshly burnt pie during a storm.

Rapunzel trembled and covered her ears, daring to look up. Her mouth dropped open.

Towers made of glass loomed over her like they were holding up the sky. Flashing pictures, moving and morphing and mesmerizing, slipped across the fronts of the towers like water. Long silver beams held up flashing, colorful lanterns over a huge slab of black rock, and a sea of moving, polished, and painted stones, larger than she was, zipped along the black rock, blaring their sharp goose-like calls.

Rapunzel's gaping mouth wound into a humongous grin, and she laughed.

"Pascal! Pascal, you've got to see-."

But that's when she saw them. Moving around the sides of the black rock, on a ledge a few feet across.

Ruffians! Thugs!

People!

Rapunzel whipped around, but they were behind her too. All around her, talking, jogging, silently watching the stones beneath their feet as they passed.

"Pascal!"

She started running, calling his name as loud as she could, when-

"OUCH!"

She was jerked to the ground. Rapunzel shrieked and tried to jump back up, but her hair was stuck. Looking behind, she saw that a little girl was standing on it, wide eyed-and staring right at her.

"Mama!" the girl yelled. Rapunzel made wild "shhh" signs, but the girl didn't understand.

Then, a flash of green came out of nowhere, and whirled up the girl's leg, arm, and onto her shoulder. A horribly piercing scream ripped through the air, and Rapunzel was free.

"Pascal!" she called, ecstatic with relief, but her green friend was suddenly scooped up by a man who seemed to pop out of nowhere. He wore a dark blue jumper and had a bald head and a nametag that said "Phil Martizzi, Zoo Maintenance".

"Eh, what're you doin out of the zoo?" he asked in a strange accent, putting a fuming Pascal into his shirt pocket. He turned and started walking away.

"NO!" Rapunzel fled after him, running into several angry people but suddenly not caring. She had no idea what a "zoo" was, but she had a pretty good idea about how Pascal felt about the insides of pockets.

She gathered her hair as she went, to avoid any more curious little girls.

Phil Martizzi rounded a corner suddenly, and as Rapunzel caught up, she caught her breath. There was a break in the towers, and a large stone building with a pretty metal gate read "Repicci's Zoo of Exotic Creatures" and a smaller sign read, "Grand Opening Today!"

Pascal's captor walked to a smaller blue door beside the grand entrance and let himself in. Rapunzel took a deep breath, counted to ten, then followed.

The room past the door was muggy and small, and Rapunzel coughed as the stench of some kind of smoke stung her nose. A desk to her left was covered in all manner of disgusting things, like a half-eaten sandwich with a long piece of meat inside, a strange looking bag of crumbs, a greasy shirt, a glass of something, and little paper rolls that looked burnt on one end. Above the desk, though, was something infinitely more important to Rapunzel; rings of keys, dangling from hooks stuck in the wall.

"What kind of a horrible place needs this many keys?" she wondered aloud, grabbing one of the rings.

A hacking cough caught her attention. It came from the other side of the room, from behind another door. Rapunzel tiptoed softly and pushed the door open a crack.

Her jaw hung open-again.

Huge cages lined a cobbled walkway, where workers dressed a lot like Phil milled around with buckets, checklists, and those gross little burnt paper rolls sticking out of their mouths. And inside the cages? All sorts of animals, hunkered down under artificial rocks or pacing restlessly around their undersized "habitats".

"What is this place? What have they done to deserve this?" Rapunzel half whispered. "And where is-."

"Got ya a new iguana, or lizard or something," Phil's voice came from her right, on the other side of the door. Rapunzel opened the door a tad more, and looked at a particularly tall cage that was already almost brim-full of lizards of all kinds. Another man was dumping some nasty looking pellets into what looked upsettingly close to a food bowl on the inside. He looked up and groaned as Phil got closer.

"'Ow many times do I have to tell ya, quit bringing in every frigging varmint you see on the streets of New York. This is supposed to be an exotic zoo."

Phil's back was to her, but his voice was whiny. "This is the lizard's cage, and most people won't know the difference. Just slap a funny name on the card and everybody'll oo and ah, I guarantee it."

"I don't have time for this," the other worker huffed as he finished dumping the pellets. "We have an employee's meeting in five. Toss the thing in there and we'll deal with your captives afterwards."

There was a lot of muttering as Phil opened the cage, pulled Pascal (who was shaking with pure fury) from his pocket, and literally tossed him inside. The two workers walked off in sullen silence, neither particularly glad of the company, Rapunzel thought, but she knew this was her moment.

She went back inside, grabbed as many keys as she could carry, and slipped back outside.

"Five minutes," she whispered, tiptoeing towards the lizard's cage. "Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight..."


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello again everybody! Sorry about the wait (again). Hopefully with school starting back, my sis and I can get into a better routine. But anyway, here you go! THE LONG AWAITED SPIDEY MEETS RAPUNZEL CHAPTER! Enjoy! :D**

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Chapter 4: In which Spidey meets his match (almost)

Why wasn't she moving?

Spider-man could see the drivers getting frustrated, and some even a little violent. Then he saw why.

The tip of the girls hair was caught under one of the wheels. She was tugging frantically, and it was obvious that she was afraid of the vehicles.

He checked his watch, 9:50 p.m. He wasn't sure he had enough time to handle this one, but he couldn't leave it alone and didn't have time to call Aunt May and tell her he'd be late.

A car horn sounded and he made his decision.

Spidey swung down and landed on the hood of the car.

"Back up, she's stuck!"

The driver stared in awe for a moment at the hero, and then obeyed. The girl immediately tumbled backward and fell, but sat straight back up, her eyes the size of baseballs.

"PASCAL!" she screamed, and Spidey suddenly heard an infuriated and slightly muffled squeak under his foot. He immediately lifted it and picked up a small green chameleon, who looked furious enough to devour Spidey alive. The traffic light turned red and he heard a few drivers cuss.

"GIVE HIM BACK!" The girl jumped to her feet, pointing at the lizard.

"Sorry, I was too busy keeping you from getting run ov-whaaa?!"

A glossy blonde rope suddenly curled around his wrist, and WHIP! He was sailing towards the top of a light pole, for the first time in his life not by choice. He found himself dangling over the street, one arm tied to the light and the other still clutching the chameleon, who was wheezing and steadily turning blue.

He stared at the rope holding him, and followed it back to the girls head. He realized what happened and looked at the girl, impressed. That took a lot of strength.

"Give him back, you ruffian! You thug! You keep your sharp teeth away from him!" The girl was obviously trying to be frightening, but Spidey could see now that she was shaking. She bounced when a driver near her slapped his horn three or four times, and Spidey could see that she was on the edge of tears.

"Sharp teeth? Who - what - no! Look you've got the wrong idea." He swung back around the pole and landed lightly on top of it, easing his grip on the gasping lizard.

"Don't move!" she shouted. She lifted the strip of hair that still held his hand, awkwardly bracing her bare feet. "I'm in control here, and-and-I'll pull you down if you don't give him back right now!"

Even as he grinned at her claim of "control," Spidey realised he didn't doubt she could pull him down - or would, for that matter. Three more cars joined the huge chorus of honking as the light turned green again.

Just then a gruff man leaned out of a truck window. His face was red with fury.

"GET OUT OF THE ROAD!" he roared at the top of his lungs.

Spidey shot a web at the corner of the nearest building.

"Brace up!" He yelled. The girl's jaw dropped, staring at the web.

"Wha-AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Spidey had swung down and scooped up the girl, handing her her green friend. But all the hair! He shot out an expanded web and caught it all in a sticky net, yanking it after them.

"LET GO!" the girl screamed, terrified. Spider-man felt scrambling on his arm, and suddenly four little claws were clinging to his face. The chameleon unleashed a chortled roar that was not at all intimidating.

"You sure about that?" he yelled to the girl over the whipping air.

She looked down, and he could have sworn she turned as green as her pet. "DON'T LET GO, DON'T LET GO, WHATEVER YOU DO!"

"Up to you now! Hang on, blondie," Spidey yelled back, grabbing his webbing with both hands, the web holding the girl's hair slipping out of control. "I need both arms to get us both up!"

The girl instantly clutched his neck. "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!"

"I'm trying to help you! Now will you just calm down!?"

He swept up and landed heavily on the top of a building, dropping the girl and pulling the green attachment off his face. He panted. He hadn't taking into consideration how heavy seventy-five feet of hair could be. "Now look-."

The girl had tumbled in a golden mass, then sat up straight, clutched her limbs, felt her face, and laughed almost hysterically.

"I'm alive!" she said, then raised her arms and shouted, "I'M ALIVE!" She whipped her head towards him and lumps of tangled hair hung in her suddenly terrified face. "Stay away!" she squealed as she scuttled a few paces away, tripping herself in her hair. "I'm-I'm not afraid to hurt you!"

"Whoa, hey! Calm down, you won't have to. I'm on your side!" Her big, frightened eyes were fixed on his costume, and realized the problem.

"Look," he said, taking off his glove to reveal bare skin and his web-shooter, "I'm a person too."

She looked at his hand, and slowly, slowly, the fear trickled out of her eyes. She glanced at his face, her face open, vulnerable, scared, but beginning to understand. She reached out slowly, her slender fingers trembling as she just barely touched his skin. Her fingers were ice cold, and any irritation Spidey had suddenly melted. He opened his hand, an offer of help. She hesitated, then put her hand in his, letting him help her to her feet when-

"Ooomph!" her hair caught underfoot and yanked her to a stop. "Ow! Hang on...get-through-ow! oh come on-hey!" she said as she kept getting caught in her hair and the sticky threads that had broken.

Spidey grinned under his mask. "Tangled?"

"In webs." The girl looked at him, curiosity suddenly pouring into her face. "Like, spiderwebs."

"Don't worry, they dissolve after an hour. Until then you'll just have to deal with it." He realised he still had the chameleon in his other hand and he gave it to her, being careful to handle it gently.

A relieved grin spread across the girl's face, and she held out her hand to her thoroughly irritated, scrambling companion, who turned and blew his tongue at Spidey before scuttling into a nest of hair on the girl's shoulder. For the first time, Spidey got a good look at her.

She was almost his height, maybe a few inches shorter. Her eyes were huge and green and curious as she stared at him, a little harder than he was comfortable with. She was slender, but Spidey had no trouble imagining that she was stronger than she looked. A scraped up, dirty pink dress hung limp at her ankles, and pooled all around in a wadded mess of web was more hair than he had ever seen in his life.

"Thank goodness you took it easy on him," she said, patting her pet's head.

Spidey grinned. "Well, you know..."

She looked up, giggling. "Not you. Pascal. You could have been killed, you know."

He stared at her, unable to speak for a moment. "You're kidding, right? I almost killed that thing by accident. If I were actually trying to hurt him, he'd be lizard squash by now!"

The lizard rolled his eyes and puffed out his chest, giving the girl a "can you believe this guy?" look out of the corner of his eye.

"No he wouldn't," the girl replied, swelling with pride for her pet. "He had everything under control, I'll have you know. Pascal here killed a huge spider that was going to hurt me when I was five, and he's been my bodyguard ever since. Anyway, he helped me capture you after that business with the silver beetles, when you stepped on him."

"Captured me!? How exactly do you figure that I'm captured?" he jerked his glove back on, never taking his eyes off her.

She bobbed her head at the hair still wrapped around Spidey's wrist. A mischievous look came over her face. "Oh, just that. I could let you go, you know. Are you going to behave?"

"ME!? You're the one who's been misbehaving! You walked into the middle of a busy intersection and let a gorilla loose! What have I done? Oh yeah! SAVED YOUR LIFE!"

"Well, keep up that attitude and you're going to end up with a permanent bracelet, mister." The girl cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "And anyway, those maniacs in the shiney honking beetles were the ones causing trouble. As for the bo-billa, he was trapped and I had to save him. What did I do that was so terrible?"

Spidey stared at her in half surprise and half amazement that someone could know so little.

"You thought-? okay first of all; those are called cars. They're a lot faster than they look and as long as they stay on the roads and we stay off them, nobody gets hurt. Second; its a GOrilla and its a dangerous animal and needs to be kept in a cage or else people get hurt. Now do you see the pattern here? Because of your actions you were putting yourself and other people in danger. That's where I come in. Unlike some people I help the community by... say... keeping dangerous animals where they belong and saving people from turning themselves into road kill!"

The girl's green eyes were wide a saucers, and the hurt was plain to see.

"I didn't...I didn't realize..." She dropped her eyes and twisted a strand of hair around her fingers.

"Yeah, I noticed that," he studied her for a moment, then added sarcastically, "Something tells me you're not from here. What's your name?"

That seemed to hit on something. Suddenly, the girl's face turned suspicious, and she backed up a step, a frown darkening on her face. "Why should I tell you?" she replied. "I'm in control, so I'll do the asking. Who are you?"

"You can call me wall-crawler, web slinger, Spidey, vigilante, human spider, web swinger," then with a tone of disgust so low she couldn't catch it, "some call me public menace," then back to his original show voice, "but most call me Spider-man." and then with the flourish of someone who'd obviously been in show business before, he did an effortless backflip to a nearby pipe, and sat on it in a crouched position. He then stared at her as if expecting applause.

She stared back for a moment, surprised, then grabbed another handful of hair, keeping a good grip on the one that held his wrist, and braced her feet. Well, at least she was treating him more seriously.

"What kind of a name is that? And what are you? That kind of agility...I'm not the best judge in the world, but I don't think its normal." She looked him up and down, taking in his red and blue suit, and her face screwed up. "And what's with your clothes?"

"Of course it's not normal! They're show clothes." he paused and looked far-off for a moment, then added, "or they were."

"And, anyway, why should I believe you?" The girl took a challenging step forward, Pascal growling, a tinge of fear behind her eyes just present enough to make her more determined. "Mother warned me about your type. You're a ruffian, aren't you? Or a thief, or a thug, or something?"

"No! How hard is this for you to process!? I'm a good-guy! Where are you from, anyway? You don't know anything!"

Suddenly she looked hurt, like he had struck some old wound. "Well, excuse you! I may not be the most experienced girl in the kingdom-"

"Kingdom?"

"-but I can see rudeness well enough. I don't know why you keep assuming that YOU get to ask all the questions, mister Wall-Slinging Human-Crawler Spider-Thing Person."

"It's Spider-man."

"Whatever. I don't have to tell you anything I don't want to. Now if you'll excuse us," and she patted her pet comfortingly, "we have a shimmery mirror-thing to find. I'm going home."

"I think you're forgetting something."

"What!"

Spider-man lifted his wrist with the silky gold strip around it and pointed.

"Well, I may just keep you with me, to see that you stay out of trouble."

That was the last straw. Spidey shot a web at her other wrist, the one that wasn't holding her hair. "Two can play at that game, hot-head."

She glared up at him and then pulled with all her might on the hair that held his hand.

He fell forward off his pipe and face-planted into the paved rooftop with a thud. She took her chance and tried to rip off the webbing on her wrist, but he grabbed her leg and pulled it out from under her, causing her to fall backward into her hair.

Before Spidey was on his feet again a furious little chameleon pounced on his face and proceeded to violently gnaw at his mask. Spidey stood up, pulled him off by his tail and tossed him a few yards away where he landed in a Mcdonald's takeaway bag.

The delay was only a few seconds, but it was just enough time for the girl to jump back up. She snapped her hair like whips, trying to wrap one of them around Spidey's legs, but he was dodging them like a pro, and she was running out of breath.

Suddenly she flung her hair out to grab something, and before the young hero knew what happened a large red brick landed harshly on his foot.

"Owwww! What tha-"

Spidey hopped on one foot, holding the other in his hands. Then she wrapped another strip of hair around his ankle while he was in midair and tripped him.

"Alright, enough fun and games!" He shot a webb ball at her face and her hands instantly went to it, but not in time.

"Owwww!"

Now Spidey had the upper hand and flipped behind her, grabbed her hands, clapped them together, and pulled them up as high as was safe. She doubled over, wincing in pain.

"Now listen here," he said, "I get the feeling you're not from around here and you don't know the rules, so I'll give you a chance. But you'd better face the fact that you're going to learn the rules and obey them, because otherwise I will not hesitate to send you to jail. And if you aren't sure I can, then just go ahead and try me. I promise that you'll find you're not as powerful as you think. You got all that, Rapunzel?"

And just like that, the struggling stopped. The chameleon poked his head out of the takeaway bag and stared at him, jaw dropped. The girl slowly looked up, her eyes more terrified than he'd ever seen them.

"You know...my name?"

Her name!? HER NAME!? He had just been calling her the first thing that came to his mind, like he always did, but now she was saying it was her name? What did that even MEAN? He didn't know, but he did know he had something to use against her now.

"I'll tell you how I know if you untie me." Spider-man let the girl go and she stumbled forward, gasping in relief. She rolled her shoulders then took hold of the hair-covered wrist he held out to her.

She picked at it a moment, re-focused, turned it this way and that, then looked up at him, despair written all over her face.

"I can't." She tugged on the hair again as if to show him it wouldn't budge, but her entire focus was on him.

That's when he remembered something. He suddenly pulled back his glove and looked at his watch in horror. His curfew had been at 10:00 p.m. It was now 10:45.

How would he ever explain to Aunt May!?


End file.
